Go to Reading on Line
Purchase the book Lajes Air Base - written by Meneses Martins
Go to Home Page
Go to Chapter 6

The Azores is a group of nine islands that belong to Portugal. They are located in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,300 kilometres west of Portugal. They lie in the path of air and cable lines that link Europe and America. Approximately 240,000 people live in the Azores. More people of Azorean descent live in the United States than in the Azores themselves. The most important city in the Azores if Ponta Delgada, which is located in San Miguel island.

The Azores forms the peaks of a vast underwater volcanic mountain chain that extends from the mid-Atlantic Ocean from Iceland nearly to Antarctica. Earthquakes are fairly common in the Azores. Much of the island is hilly and wooded, but it produces maize, grapes and citrus fruit.

Navagator Gonzalo Cabral claimed the Azores for Portugal in 1431. No one lived there when Cabral arrived. However, the Portuguese soon colonised the islands. The United Kingdom used the Azores as a naval base in warfare against the Nazis in World War II (1939 to 1945). Portugal, though neutral, permitted this because of an ancient treaty that allowed Britain to use the islands in the time of war. The United States has a military installation, Lajes Field, which is located on Terciera Island, which is translated as the third largest island in the group.

When the C141 military aircraft I was on touched down on Terciera Island, the first thing I noticed was the lush green vegetation that landscaped the island. I had never seen so much greenery in all my life. Terciera Island is truly a Garden of Eden with its beautiful green mountainous landscape. Even today I still dream of that beautiful island, and if it were not for the expense, I would love to go back there as a tourist.

I was assigned to Cinco Pico, a communication site about site miles from the base. This site was a relay station that housed ground radio and radio relay equipment. I was working on teletype equipment, old tube type multiplexers, and radio equipment. It was on Cinco Pico that I really learned my trade because the site was small enough to enable me to study the equipment and properly maintain it.

Enrique was assigned to Job Control on base. He was required to liase with the Technical Control facility and other agencies to log jobs with the work centres, such as ground radio, sitcom, and crypto, just to name a few. Both Enrique and I would be working shift work and our shifts would not necessarily coincide. Because of our work commitments we would not see a great deal of each other.

When Enrique and I arrived on base, we were assigned a room at the BAQ until we found a place of our own. We also needed a car to get around, which was a pressing issue. The sponsorship that we received was not very good, so we were just pretty much left to fend for ourselves. It was when we were living in the BAQ that I would receive a first glimpse into just how inept Enrique was at making normal day to day decisions. I would also get a taste of his very violent nature, which has previously lain dormant in his personality.

We went around and looked at an apartment and told the landlord that we would like to take it. No one told us when the apartment would be vacated and when we would be able to move in. We were both too naïve to ask.

Therefore, instead of moving out of the BAQ as soon as the apartment was empty, we stayed there for two months. It was only when I let it slip to the manager of the BAQ that we had been living there for two months that they realised we should have moved out some time earlier. Enrique and I were summoned to the manager’s office and we were told that we would not be required to pay back the money that we had been given to live in the BAQ, but we had to move into our apartment as soon as possible.

Enrique never said a word about my innocent comment that landed us in hot water, but I could see that he was seething with rage. Enrique blamed me. He would never have dreamed, however, at looking at his own inadequacies as a husband and a provider. Deep down inside, Enrique saw it as my responsibility to provide a home for him, as his mother had been in his more formative years. Somewhere in the mire of an unhappy marriage, Enrique’s parents somehow forgot to teach Enrique that it was his responsibility, as a man, to ensure that family was organised. I can only suppose that because his mother took care of everything in his family, he expected me to do the same.

Before we could move into the apartment, it had to first be cleaned. The people who had lived there previously had very poor standards of cleanliness and hygiene and there was no way I was moving in until it had been cleaned from top to bottom. The bathroom was particularly filthy, as the toilet was completely caked with urine because it probably had not been wiped down with disinfectant the entire time the previous family had lived there.

I would go to the flat on my days off and before work, and would paint the wooden floors and clean the rooms. Enrique did not take any interest at all in the preparatory work and left it all to me. His behaviour set precedence because the entire time we were together he would not lift a finger around the house. He thought all of that was woman’s work. He never took note of the fact that in addition to all of the woman’s work I was doing at home, I was also going out every day and doing a man’s job.

It was when Enrique and I were living in the BAQ that he started becoming physically violent towards me. It seemed that he wanted sex on demand and he expected an active and willing partner. He had a reasonably high sex drive and could go for hours without having an orgasm. While many women would love a man as well endowed as Enrique, who also suffered from a sexual dysfunction that meant he could not climax, I was not overly thrilled.

One evening Enrique wanted to go the movies and have sex both in the same evening, and I was not thrilled at the prospect of wearing myself out. I told Enrique that we could have sex or go out to the movies, but not both. When I decided to exert my independence, Enrique became enraged and an argument inevitably ensued.

It was at that time that Enrique developed a nasty little penchant for domination and humiliation. He would wait until I was in the middle of undressing, such as taking my clothes off to take a shower or put my pyjamas on. As soon as all of my clothes were off and I was completely naked, he would rush towards me, grab me, and throw me against the wall. After he had me where he wanted me, he would either grab hold of each wrist and pin me to the wall, or put his hands around my throat in mock strangulation. While Enrique was doing all of these things, he would distort his face in an ugly grimace and threaten me through clenched teeth.

Not surprisingly, with behaviour like that it did not take long for me to lose any romantic feelings I may have had for my new husband. Enrique only wanted a wife so he could have someone to order around, pay all the bills, and give him sex on whenever he felt the need to relieve himself. His decision to marry had little, if anything, to do with mutual love and admiration, and everything to do with what he could get out of the marriage.

Enrique was not ashamed in the least about his aggressive behaviour towards women. One day when Enrique and I had a row, I stormed off while we were in front of the BAQ. Because I was walking away from him, I did not see what he did while he was behind me. Suddenly he caught up with me, grabbed my arm, and spoke to me in an angry tone, although I do not remember exactly what he said.

Enrique must have behaved in a very threatening manner because three teenage girls sitting on a wall witnessed him. From that point onwards those girls would taunt Enrique by calling him a “wife beater” at every possible opportunity. I wanted to just die of embarrassment, knowing fully well that what they said was true. Enrique, however, was completely unfazed. On one occasion he even walked over the girls and said hello to them, and I do not know if that was meant as a threat or an act of friendliness. I suppose that in some sick way Enrique was quite proud of the fact that he was a wife beater. Even if I was in denial about the type of man I married, other people were not.

We needed to get a car when we arrived at Lajes Field. Enrique did not really need one because he could easily have walked from our home to his job on the main base. I, on the other hand, worked more than eight miles away and therefore needed reliable transportation.

We purchased a car from a man who was being posted to another base with his family. I will never forget the day we bought the car because when the man drove us to the registration office, Enrique sat in the front seat and I sat in the back. After we bought it, however, Enrique sat in the driver’s seat, the former owner sat in the back seat, and I sat in the front passenger seat.

If I had been brought up in a better class of family I would have been happy enough with myself to have no need for such trivial territorial assignments such as sitting in the front seat, but sadly that was not the case. I was happy to sit in the front seat. If I had more confidence in myself, I would have told the previous owner that I would sit in the back seat while he sat in the front.

Even though I had paid for half of the car, Enrique took it as his own. If I wanted to drive our car, I had to ask his permission. Even though Enrique worked a mile at the very most from work, he insisted on taking our car to work every day. That left me without transport, so I had to either take the free bus the security guards used, or catch a lift from a colleague. My problems with transportation would inevitably lead to problems with my work, but Enrique didn’t give a damn about that. As long as he was okay, he was not concerned in the least about any problems I might be having.

Unfortunately, that was a theme that would resound in all of my personal relationships. I had terrible taste in men and would automatically make a bee line to the man who would treat me the worst.

When Enrique and I finally set up house together in our own apartment, it occurred that Enrique’s money was for himself while my money was supposed to be used to support the family. We alternated paying the bills, such as gas, electricity and rent, but I bought all of the groceries. In my marriage, as in all of my subsequent relationships, I would invariably put more into the relationship than my partner. As a result of all of the money Enrique was saving by not helping out with the food bill, he amassed quite a little nest egg while I had almost no savings at all.

Enrique suffered from persistent dark moods and I could not understand why. He would come home from work in a terrible state. When he came home he would not even bother to take his uniform off and would just collapse on the couch. It was during these black moods that I could not even speak to him at all about anything. He would just lay there seething, not saying a word, while the demons inside him raged.

One day when Enrique came home from work, I rushed up to him to plant a huge kiss on him because I was so happy to see him. Enrique was not happy to see me, however. He pushed me away from him and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Get off me!”

The message was clear. Enrique was not interested in the least in kissing me when he left or came home from work. I was deeply hurt and confused by Enrique’s behaviour. I certainly did not expect to be treated like that by my new husband.

One day when I was standing in the kitchen preparing a meal, Enrique came in and kicked me with the full force of his body. I screamed out in pain and shock. I simply could not believe that my husband would resort to such violence. We had been having a disagreement, but as far as I could see, it certainly did not warrant such an act of violence.

Immediately after Enrique kicked me and saw the pained expression on my face, he fled the house. He was such a coward that he could not even stay and face the consequences of his actions. Hours later, when he returned from wherever it was that he had gone, I informed him that I would be leaving him. But of course I didn’t. Being a survivor of childhood battering, I was very accustomed to domestic violence. My rather austere marriage was merely an extension of my brutal childhood, so the experience was not entirely alien to me.

Shortly after arriving in the Azores, I seemed to be plagued with urinary tract infections. Most of them were so bad that I had to go to the bathroom every few minutes and the only thing that would clear the infection up was antibiotics.

After a couple of such infections, I knew the signs and would therefore make an appointment to see a doctor, hoping to be given more antibiotics to cure the problem. The doctor, however, was not so quick to prescribe drugs. I would therefore be told that I had to allow my body’s immune system to kick in and work. Consequently, I suffered in silence most of the time.

I have no idea why I seemed to have persistent urinary tract infections while I was with Enrique because I never had them before I went to the Azores and I have only ever had one flare up since that time, when a boy friend insisted upon rubbing baby powder on me after sex.

Because I am not prone to urinary tract infections, I can only assume that Enrique picked up some kind of bacteria from somewhere and then passed it on to me. Although I would never have suspected Enrique of being unfaithful to me, I did read an article in Cosmopolitan magazine about a woman who was constantly picking up infections from her unfaithful lover. I can only assume, therefore, that Enrique was picking up germs from somebody and was then passing them on to me. If he was seeing somebody else, I will never know because we worked separate shifts and rarely saw each other socially.

When we settled in to our routine, Enrique would have sex with me on average once a week, and that is exactly what it was, sex. There was no lovemaking involved at all. That had vanished shortly after we arrived on the island. Enrique merely used me as a vehicle to relieve his physical urges in the same manner that he might defecate or urinate. As far as Enrique was concerned, he was simply taking care of his bodily functions.

During our weekly sex sessions, I reverted to my childhood coping mechanism. I had not yet come to abhor the sexual act because it was something that I grew up with. When Enrique was on top of me, grunting, groaning, and doing what he needed to do to have a climax, I would be a million miles away. I remember one incident in particular when I was imagining making a lovely white suite for myself. I would rather be sewing than partaking of carnal knowledge, but was willing to submit to the chore, just like I had done when I was a child.

After a while I did not even daydream while my husband was on top of me, relieving himself. I would simply black out. It would seem as if everything would really just go black. For years I thought that I had simply gone to sleep, and actually joked about it to someone in more desperate times. What happened, I would later come to realise, was much more complex than that. I had dissociated.

One day in the early hours of the morning, I woke up quite bewildered. My last recollection was that of my husband on top of me, having sex, and I had just totally blacked out. Because Enrique was so violent, I thought for sure the he would beat the living daylights out of me if I dared to go to sleep in the middle of the sex act.

I woke Enrique up and asked him about the sex act. He told me to shut up and go back to sleep because we had had sex hours ago. If Enrique had been aware of me dissociating or blacking out, he certainly did not let on. Perhaps he was so wrapped up in himself and his own needs that he did not have a thought in the world about how I felt.

From very early on in our marriage, Enrique preferred the company of men. He would take me to squadron or department barbeques and as soon as he reached the front door he would abandon me. He would usually make a bee line to a group of single men and would not even bother to introduce me to anybody to make sure that I had company. In virtually every social gathering we went to, Enrique would leave me to make my own introductions and find people to speak to.

During one barbeque a wasp flew into the can of coke I was drinking and it stung me as I went to take a sip. Enrique had left me sitting on my own on a bench and had gone to speak to a group of men standing nearby. My health, safety and welfare did not matter to Enrique, but did it ever?

When I spoke to Enrique about being stung by the bee, he snapped at me for interrupting him. He was clearly engrossed in what the men were saying and was not interest at all that I had been stung by a wasp. So unconcerned was Enrique about me that my health was of no consequence whatsoever.

Our first anniversary went by almost unnoticed by Enrique. I had purchased him an anniversary present and had expected him to get me one, but as the day wore on no acknowledgement of our “happy day” came. I was clearly very upset but there was nothing I could say. It was entirely up to Enrique if he wanted to celebrate our anniversary and I could not force him to buy me presents or take me out for a meal.

Finally, at about 5:00pm Enrique came into the house with a few presents. He had obviously had a change of heart and decided to get me something after all. Perhaps one of his friends told him he should get me something to put at least a little effort into our marriage. I will never know.

Enrique’s violence would not abate. Whenever he became angry he would throw an object, such as a glass, across the room and it would disintegrate into small pieces. He would shove me, push me, try to strangle me, and when that didn’t work he would resort to emotional abuse.

One day when I was particularly alarmed about Enrique’s behaviour, I told Master Sergeant Keiser, who was running Cinco Pinco, that I wanted to leave my husband. The site superintendent knew that if I left my husband he would have to get me a room in the barracks, help me move, and provide me with support that he was not prepared to give. I can only assume that this man did not see what the big deal was because domestic violence is very much a part of the culture of a military household. Because I did not get any support from my site superintendent, who should have been there for me in a time of need, I stayed with Enrique and put any thoughts of leaving out of my mind.

Domestic violence is rarely a one off event. Abuse of power and control by one person over another is a central issue and can include all kinds of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. It includes abuse between partners and ex-partners whether married or not. Usually victims of domestic violence are women, but occasionally men and same sex couples are also victims.

Domestic violence may be experienced by anyone regardless of social group, age, race, disability, sexuality and lifestyle. Abuse can begin at time, in new relationships or after many years spent together.

It is not easy to accept that a loved on can behave aggressively. Many victims may assume that they themselves are to blame, but no one deserves to be assaulted, abused or humiliated. It is never easy. Leaving an abusive relationship can be as frightening as the prospect of staying.

Every three days a woman is killed in a domestic violence incident:-

* 4 women since the age of 16 has suffered from domestic violence.

* In 90% of incidents within families, children are in the same or next room.

* Domestic violence represents over 25% of all reported violent crime (which is probably why the police don’t want to get involved in domestic disputes because it would increase their workload).

* An incident of domestic violence takes place in the United Kingdom every 6 to 20 seconds.

* Domestic violence impacts on victims, children, friends and family.